Painted Reliefs by Masood Hussain & Tanka by Gabriel Rosenstock
Two tanka, five-line poems, by Gabriel Rosenstock, that were written in response to the artworks by the artist Kashmir Masood Hussain. The illustrations and poems have been published in a collection entitled “Boatman! Take These Songs From Me.”
***
to You I have revealed
the geography of my soul
the rivers and hills
lakes and valleys
seas where all my secrets lie
***
she is beautiful’
my dance guru said
‘the one you dance for’
‘you have seen her?’ I asked
‘I see her in your eyes!’
Masood Hussain is renowned artist & sculptor from Kashmir. His latest creative endeavor is a series of reliefs that portray the grief, pain, distress, and the occasional glimmer of escape, that is the human experience today. To the viewer’s delight, visible within the collection are delightful signs and symbols that a man pins his hopes on, as he struggles for the amulets, holy writings, prayers, strings tied to the windows of mausoleums, appeals to the holy men for intercedence, penance, and meditation. The series ends, very appropriately, with reliefs that portray the ultimate, the eternal peace, the long quiet slumber of death.
Gabriel Rosenstock, born in postcolonial Ireland, is a bilingual poet, tankaist, haikuist, novelist, playwright, short story writer, translator, and essayist. He also writes for children. He is a member of Aosdána (the Irish academy of arts and letters) and a recipient of the Tamgha-I-Khidmet medal for services to literature. Rosenstock responds to the artwork of Masood Hussain with a sequence of tanka, five-line poems of love, emptiness, and desire.
